The early paperwork has been filed to raze the existing structure, fuel station and surface area parking lot stretching from 1201-1225 Tennessee to 2650-2690 Third Streets and construct a six-story mixed-use building with 300 dwelling units over 255 parking spaces and up to 5,500 square feet of retail on the site.

I wish, before they fill up that part of town with housing with similar unit/parking ratios, that they’d survey the residents of recent developments and find out how many cars they actually own per unit.

@BobN – the crazy part, Bob? If more housing gets built with less parking and parking becomes scarcer (read: more difficult and/or more expensive), folks without as many cars are naturally drawn to WANT to live there. It’s the market in action.

agree with the parking comments. there is not enough parking for the residents, much less the retail space. Why would they build another structure without enough parking? Street parking is tough enough already

This location is five blocks from Caltrain and right on top of a T line station. So you can easily commute to hundreds of thousands of jobs without using a bicycle let alone a car. I think that there will be enough residents in this 300 unit building who take the car free option that a 1:1 parking ratio isn’t required.

Is it just me, or is our transit policy all stick and no carrot. I see some of the thought process behind limiting parking, but were is the carrot? “Get on your bike” doesn’t do much for me my friends.

As far as I can tell the city’s ‘transit first’ policy is essentially: “Well, MUNI’s terrible and let’s be honest, we’re too incompetent to fix that. But, if we make driving and parking even more terrible than MUNI, then folks will choose to take it.”

I really don’t consider limiting parking to be a part of the transit-first stuff. Limiting how many cars on the road makes things better for other drivers more than anything. I’d love to see significantly more housing being built here with even less parking – more people = great neighborhood, more cars = horrible traffic.

Well, there are documented studies that prove that less parking = less cars (even very, very high income areas), so I’m not sure how/why you’re not convinced. It should be obvious just looking at neighborhoods like Nob Hill or the UES in Manhattan. Less available parking causes people to self-sort – those that don’t want or need parking are more likely to buy in areas that don’t have it, and vice versa. People don’t move to an area without thinking about parking, especially in cities, and I’ve met many folks that have moved to or from neighborhoods ENTIRELY because of lack of parking.

Limiting parking reduces automobile usage which reduces congestion. Congestion is the number one reason Muni has slowed down over the years.
I know difficulty finding parking at places like North Beach and at the Costco on 9th Street has encouraged me to bicycle instead of drive many times.

@What’s Up You should check out the Transit Effectiveness Project that MTA is slowly implementing. It has definitely improved the trip along Mission by the use of the 14 and the 14L. I am still waiting to see wider spaced stops, which should help as well.http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mtep/tepover.htm
There is also the effort to build a BRT on Van Ness and Geary, which is moving slowly mostly due to two factors:
1) The usual San Francisco NIMBYs who slow down pretty much anything.
2) The budget situation.
Unfortunately TEP was kicked off about a year before the financial collapse, so funding has been limited.
We are also building the train box at the Trans Bay Terminal and the tunnel for the cross-town Central Subway line.
I am not sure how long you have been here, but Muni is much better today than it was in the mid-90s. Willie Brown improved Muni quite a bit though it seems like things have not changed much since then.